Stuck in the Middle With...me?

I had no idea the block-programming I encountered via my cable provider would one day double as a weather model. If I had, I might not have fired them. Alas, AT&T bills escalate like Illinois property taxes, putting the kabosh on that teachable moment.

But even minus the ongoing example their lesson remains.

Last winter gave all appearances of being a mild affair, with precious little of the white stuff falling through the twenty-fourth of January. In my naivete I even began to entertain thoughts of green grass and soft breezes. Leaves on trees. Songbirds.

But the same block-programming which had gifted me with days full of That '70s Show and Wicked Tuna and the always-delightful Housewives franchise asserted itself in a new arena—weather. The one-flavor-at-a-time aesthetic was about to deliver a punishing new blow.

It snowed. Then it snowed some more. And then it snowed still-more. A forty-three year-old record for consecutive days of measurable snowfall nearly fell as well, but was merely tied. Long story short, we received a winter's worth of snow in a single month.

The concentration was unprecedented.

Then spring arrived. And for the first time since 2017, May didn't generate record amounts of rain. But relief is discouraged in Illinois, and by June my portion of the state was immersed in a drought.

Beige grass, trees stressed and shedding leaves—the whole deal.

But last Wednesday it finally rained. Then it rained on Thursday. And on Friday. Saturday. Monday. Tuesday. And is forecast for today as well. (Though appropriately gloomy, Sunday was somehow exempted.)

It seems even the Cubs, in a fresh take on the eternal nature or nurture question, have adopted the dynamic.

They sucked in April, setting franchise records for hitting futility. And when you consider the team began play in 1876 in the so-called “deadball” era, well, it appeared the deadball era wasn't quite as dead as we thought.

They got their groove on in May, going 19 and 8 and outscored the opposition 131 to 85—a margin of nearly two runs a game. Oh my god! These guys are the 1939 Yankees reincarnated!

Ugh-huh. Sure.

June has seen a return to April's form (if their play can even be dignified by such a term), as they have gone 12 and 15 and averaged a meager 3.3 runs per game, which is even worse than April's showing.

It has grown exponentially worse since the fourteenth. From that point, the Cubs have terrorized Major League Baseball, winning 4 of their last 15 and crossing home plate 28 times in those 15 games. (If you're as mathematically-gifted as I, you'll notice that isn't even two runs a game.)

It is wearying. Sorry, Mr. Hoyer.

Stir in lingering pandemic fatigue, inflation, shortages, random and widespread gun violence and our simmering political and societal divides and life feels pretty damn weird. Out of control. Like a frozen pizza that goes from undercooked to burnt in milliseconds. 

What the _____? Are extremes the new normal?

It must now be asked: Could the neurological condition known as bi-polar actually be a lifestyle?

Living by the Sword

As an avowed anti-Republican, the mess in Texas puts me in a funny place. Do I snicker? Cry? What is the correct response? Before you label me a hater and paste this on your social media platform of choice, hear me out.

I feel nothing but pity for the people watching their homes freeze. And then flood. For the people getting socked with four-digit utility bills. For the people whose lives have been upended (again) by a storm stoked via climate change.

On the other hand, Texas and its citizens have long revelled in their defiance of any policy that didn't originate with a Republican. Remember how Texas was at the forefront of the masks-are-tyranny protests last summer? Texans glory in their state's self-referencing itself as a “whole 'nother country.” Is there a soul alive who hasn't been told not to mess with Texas?

I guess our ever-changing climate didn't get the memo.

For the second time in three and-a-half years, Texas' refusal to adopt federal regulations with regards to zoning and flood protocols and to ignore suggested protections directed at its energy grid have blown up in its face. Texas is the dumb-as-a-box-of-rocks teenager who believes he can ride his bike with his eyes closed.

Until he can't.

Then he runs home to mom, who despite the yelling and the finger-pointing and the repeated cries to stay out of his life opens her purse and dutifully offers a wad of fresh Kleenex—if not a ride to the hospital (where I discretely point out it is her insurance which provides for his recuperation).

Texas has poached jobs and people nationwide and bragged about it. It loudly claims to offer life without regulation, a state income tax and good old free-market, Republican-styled capitalism.

And I say "Yahoo, partner!"

But here's the thing. Its smarmy, arrogant businessticians want to avoid regulation at all costs, because no one—no one—should be able to tell a white, Texas businessman what to do. They should be free to do whatever the hell they want to do without smothering oversight from the big, bad federal government.

And that's fine. To each their own. 

But it's just a bit disingenuous and a tad hypocritical to turn around and demand aid from that same big, bad federal government before your latest broadside about the evils of overly-invasive government has even had a chance to evaporate.

Like I said, I'm a strident anti-Republican. And I am tired of watching Democrats forced once again to be the parent. Of having to play the grown-up. The reconciler. The nice guy. The one with a fully-developed sense of humanity and bigger, broader horizons in mind.

Yep. Tired. Really. Fucking. Tired.

Texas, pack your play things and go home. Show us some of that famously resilient self-sufficiency! You don't need anything or anyone! It's time to prove it. 

Like that orange-haired asshole you adore, you clearly believe you're bigger than the United States. I'm sure you'd be more comfortable without our suffocating restraints. And our aid.

Was it really that long ago that former governor Rick Perry was making noise about seceding? Hey—anything worth trying once is worth trying twice! Come on, Greg. You too, Rick. I'll even hold the door for ya.

But one thing before you go: mom is out of Kleenex.

Houston, We Have a Problem

I love cities. Despite their acres of shopping malls with identical stores and their generic skyscrapers erected by banks and insurance companies and their strangulated networks of traffic-choked expressways, there are glimpses of genuine individuality if you bother to scrape beneath the surface.

That's right. Even in our hyper-homogenized culture, cities still possess a unique character. But rest assured developers are seeking to eradicate this even as we speak.

Houston was a city that, for bad or for good, possessed a distinct personality. It was the epitome of wide open, free-market capitalism. The city father's hearty embrace of such made it a place adored by developers, who could build with abandon and not worry about the nagging minutia of building codes and zoning restrictions.

This made Houston a roaring economic engine, and its growth into one of the nation's largest cities was spectacular. In the four decades measured between the nineteen-fifty and nineteen-eighty censuses, Houston averaged a 43.3% annual population growth and nearly tripled in size.

While that growth proved unsustainable, Houston continues to grow at a rate well above average.

Of course, there was a downside. A developer's dream is an urban planner's nightmare. Building without regard to the natural configurations of the land and a citizenries needs is a dangerous proposition. It leads to a low quality of life on many fronts.

By paving over, well, everything, Houston was a nightmare waiting to happen. However nice sparkling skyscrapers, luxury condos and sprawling retail centers are, they ignore one essential question: where does the water go when it rains?

And in Houston, ignoring such a question is equivalent to ignoring the perils of snow or cold in Minneapolis. Already the site of multiple municipal floods, Houston got hit by a storm system in August which yielded an unimaginable amount of rain. You know the rest of the story.

Yes. To those of you who embrace the small government-big business ethos, you are correct. Even a well-planned network of sewers, retention ponds, spillways, etc. couldn't have handled the fifty inches of rain that fell in Houston within a matter of hours. It was positively Biblical.

But now we know what happens when we don't even try, don't we? Now we know what an environmental crisis is, don't we? Now we know what upending hundreds of thousands of lives in an enormous city looks like, don't we?

Let me ask you this: what costs more—implementing critical infrastructure that acknowledges a region's natural proclivities or cleaning up after a Harvey-scaled disaster that requires billions and billions of dollars in government aid?

Like you, I'm thrilled the developers and those who enabled them made out like bandits. But the reality is that this is a Texas-sized version of the 2008 Wall Street fiasco, where the public gets to bear the clean up costs of private recklessness and business-friendly irresponsibility.

And the story doesn't end there.

This is Trumpland, people. This is a portent. Our so-called President wants to roll back all manner of regulation and is in the process of neutering the EPA. Should that come to pass, we could all be Houston.

Let me ask you another question: how many Harveys can we afford? How many Harveys do we pay for before people begin to complain? Before people become immune to the suffering and fractured lives and create a Facebook-based backlash?

Yes, regulations and codes can be irritating. But if we even need the lesson, Houston is it. This is what happens when we build only with an eye for development and ignore virtually everything else.

Nature will not be denied. None of us can say we weren't warned.

Speechless

In that peculiar way scorched-earthers have, it has been decided the Toyota Prius is at the root of all they consider evil, and so must heap scorn and derision upon it lest there one day be a greenhouse gas shortage on planet Earth.

I mean, just imagine the lines, right?

The sour personality types who would feel this way about a car which lessens a problem as opposed to contributing to it are, among other things, tragically misguided. 

They are tools of the corporation, the pathetic byproduct of marketing campaigns which have succeeded beyond anyone's wildest expectations at embedding between our ears the idea that we are what we own.

Given a choice between life and lifestyle, they obediently and dutifully choose lifestyle. They embrace that which those of us with functioning brains realize is killing us. 

The most obstinate call themselves coal rollers, and modify their vehicle's fuel delivery system to oversupply the engine, resulting in clouds of thick, black exhaust they jokingly refer to as Prius Repellent.

Their desire to drive these vehicles is as juvenile as it is short-sighted.

But the acting out doesn't stop there. They must ridicule those actively participating in a better future. Social media is the obvious choice, and the comments are staggering in their ignorance.

One remark which stood out was the response to a guy who enjoyed the hushed responses of his hybrid, to which a (presumed) coal roller replied “Someone buy that dude a skirt.”

I ask you: could the most ardent, man-hating feminist trivialize men and masculinity so completely and so successfully?

Thanks, bro.

Sure, the fantasy of being behind the wheel of a powerful sports car as it zooms to one-hundred plus miles-per-hour is a powerful one. It is one that has admittedly possessed this car lover for decades.

Yet one has only to venture out onto our traffic-clogged streets to know it is just that—a fantasy. 

Where I live, it seems every resident is able to drive two or three cars simultaneously. The rage and frustration the ensuing congestion provokes isn't exactly conducive to good health or productivity.

Given this undeniable reality and the mountain of evidence supporting global warming, we are left with little choice but to accept the development and implementation of clean, autonomous cars if we are to have a future.

I'll admit the better-to-die-on-your-feet-than-live-on-your-knees dynamic has its applications. But is unswerving allegiance to the internal combustion engine really one of them?

This would be fine if the climate change deniers who brook this kind of thinking were only guaranteeing a world rich in CO2 for themselves, but they're not. 

By moving 'senseless' past any known definition, they not only wish to destroy their future—which is fine—but yours as well.

Selfish self-destructiveness has no place in a democracy.